Re: Guest post: "Assisted Species Migration"

1

Hoom, hoom!


Posted by: Opinionated Treebeard | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 6:50 AM
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Ethiopia should have imported koalas to eat eucalyptus trees to extinction.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:28 AM
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Import the dog to catch the cat. Import the cat to catch the spider. Import the spider to catch the fly. I don't know why you imported the fly.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:32 AM
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4

"infamously"? Is Johnny Appleseed a villain now?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:52 AM
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Since always, the pot-hatted piece of shit.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:55 AM
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That's why he made such good fertilizer.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:01 AM
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I remember reading in a Michael Pollan book that those apples were pretty much inedible and only good for making moonshine. But that still made him the good guy, right?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:14 AM
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I went to day-long conference on this stuff. I was pretty exasperated. My take was that if species relocation was necessary, they were being incredibly picky about it. If we could afford to be this picky, it wasn't that urgent.

Pure souls that they are, the ecologists were being very careful about details like water beetle replacement in receiving streams, which to me looked like pretty damn similar water bugs.

I understand that they're the experts and I defer to them. But I also left thinking that they were making it too hard.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:24 AM
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4. Not to the Swedenborgians, he was one of them.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:27 AM
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8.2: AJ's sister worked in a similar area (pest biocontrol), and I think it's likely that it's just a pretty conservative field, because when things go wrong, there isn't much recourse - you ruin an ecosystem. The scale and speed of pilot projects was kind of surprising to me - much smaller, more targeted, longer time periods to assess results. I have no idea whether this is good or bad, but it seemed to be a definite thing.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:51 AM
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If we could afford to be this picky, it wasn't that urgent.

According to the article, the Canadians are being less picky. (snd ydnew's 10 is a more helpful response).


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 9:00 AM
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That and I think they could tell the similar brown water beetles apart and loved both kinds deeply. So it mattered to them. Which I respect and like I said, I'll defer it their expertise. But to a crass outsider it looked unreasonably finicky.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 9:00 AM
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Hey now!


Posted by: OPINIONATED SMALL BROWN WATER BEETLE | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 11:04 AM
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You're a rock star. But not a Beatle.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 11:14 AM
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"Species migration" reminds me of this animated movie I saw back in school. There was a brave seal cub who is bullied by the bulls and barely escapes seal hunters. But he goes out to sea, gets big, grows strong, and finds an island that looks like a volcano from the outside but is actually a beach on the inside. You can only get to the beach by swimming through a cave. So we comes back home, beats up the bulls that rules the current beach and gets all the lady seals to follow him to secret beach where they are safe from humans until humans get airplanes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 4:19 PM
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I don't believe I'm making that up.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 4:23 PM
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I spend a lot of time pulling Japanese knotweed out of ditches. When it moves in it just blows away all the biodiversity that was there. I can see not wanting that to happen on a water-beetle scale.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 4:47 PM
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16: The White Seal, by Rudyard Kipling, turned into a cartoon by Chuck Jones. I remembered the story but had to Google.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 4:47 PM
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16, 18: Sometimes I really love this place.


Posted by: DaveLHI | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 5:03 PM
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Megan, what's the zebra mussel situation in California?

We have mandatory boat inspection sites spread around the state. The one just to the north of us is run by CSKT; I don't know whether other tribes have a well enough developed fish & game program to competently staff sites.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 5:14 PM
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18: Thank you.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 5:26 PM
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17: I once volunteered to pull something called "garlic mustard" out of the park. But then we found an illegal dumping site and cleaned that up instead.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 5:28 PM
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Yup, our group does garlic mustard as well. Garlic mustard is relatively easy to pull so it makes a good gateway species for new invasive plant removal enthusiasts.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 5:39 PM
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You can eat it, if you are willing to eat something picked from where everyone goes to empty their dog.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 5:41 PM
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Maybe the ecologists are into the specific little beetles as a passive way of saying this whole assisted migration thing is a bullshit solution to a huge problem?

What would I assist in migrating? I can't really think of anything that's threatened by climate change but wouldn't totally change the ecosystem it was introduced into or that would thrive with little assistance. Maybe extending the ranges of Appalachian mountain salamanders? Move them along to the next mountain. Note sure how comparable their niches are.

Even trying to get things to thrive in areas where they historically were (FL Grasshopper Sparrow, Atlantic Salmon) is really hard.

A quick google suggests it's a tree/forestry thing which, yeah, explains a lot.


Posted by: hydrobatidae | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 6:05 PM
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We are near the very northern edge of the range of the tupelo tree. I wouldn't mind those moving farther north.

Right now we are loosing sugar maples to global warming, ash and hemlock to exotic insect pests, and beech trees to a fungal disease.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 6:43 PM
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We do seem to be growing a shitload of Norway maples, which invade forested areas by poisoning the root zones for all other trees and shrubs.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 6:47 PM
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There are pretty large patches of all dead trees in some of the forests near here.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:24 PM
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I worry that one day we'll get a few dry years in a row and things will start to burn.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:35 PM
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I mostly worry that a tree will fall on me when I'm sleeping.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:39 PM
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In a tent while hiking.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 7:42 PM
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They say if you worry about the trees it helps keep your mind off the bears.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:39 PM
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One time I went camping in, I think it was Nyerere National Park, and we had these special lamps with candles that would burn all night. The idea is that you surround the circle of tents with these candle lamps and it keeps the lions away.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 8:46 PM
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We're in the suburbs and my wife strings up white Christmas lights around a big window year-round. It looks a bit odd, but so far, it has totally kept away the lions.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 10-25-21 9:38 PM
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Round here it was the fashion to try to uproot feral rhododendrons. I'm not sure if they were successful or gave up. But apparently they're really hard to get rid of.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 2:46 AM
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I didn't realize rhododendrons were native when I first moved here. Was surprised to be walking in the woods and come upon a dense patch of them. They've always looked like fake plants to me.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 5:20 AM
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I didn't know they were native to North America either, but apparently they are. I think most of the ones imported here and now growing like giant weeds originated somewhere in Eastern Asia.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 7:01 AM
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I didn't know they were native to North America either, but apparently they are. I think most of the ones imported here and now growing like giant weeds originated somewhere in Eastern Asia.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 7:01 AM
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I realized I had no idea what a rhododendron looked like, googled it, thought, "Those are azaleas!" and then found out that azaleas are a type of rhododendron. Who knew.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 7:15 AM
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I didn't.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 7:21 AM
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They like to grow alongside streams. At Sequoia & Kings Canyon there's this valley trail up a slope that's like a solid mile of running water and azaleas, and it's one of my favorite places in the Sierras.


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 8:52 AM
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42: Same here (for rhodies)in the Appalachians mostly along the streams. But there are places in the Smokies and West Virginia where there I have encountered extremely large basically impenetrable rhododendron thickets strewn about at higher elevations. They get mixed in with Mountain Laurel which also related (but more distantly) to rhododendron. Just learned they are all actually in the heath plant family, so related to blueberries and cranberries. (And thinking about it blueberry plants do look a bit like tiny laurels. I think the most commonly cultivated ones around here are native to the Himalayas. I have one that has basically overwhelmed one corner of my house.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 9:37 AM
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When I was in China (on the upper Yangzte) we kept seeing rhodies that were about ten times the size of American ones all over the slopes.

As for invasives, our hit list is garlic mustard, oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose, and barberry. All of them are nasty, though garlic mustard is actually kind of pretty when it isn't spreading 10,000 seeds around.

Also, anyone else inflicted with "jumping worms," which have recently moved into MA in a big way? They act like regular earthworms on crack, and process the top layer of soil into little bits of mud that wash away in rainstorms. They also eat all the grass they encounter.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 10:21 AM
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What the fuck? No.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 10:28 AM
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Duuuude. I saw some piece on jumping worms. That's bizarre.

I was able to get hired as a lecturer to teach one Intro to Env Science class. I make sure to show them videos of debris flows and jumping silver carp. I should look for some on jumping worms.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 10:32 AM
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Eeek!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 11:03 AM
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Those are only the most recent worm invaders.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10530-017-1523-0


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 11:28 AM
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our hit list is garlic mustard, oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose, and barberry

This is our hit list too, although I'm also trying to get people to care about the emerging hybridized pear tree menace.

I haven't encountered the jumping worms yet.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 3:27 PM
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I assume any bug that I don't recognize is a spotted lantern fly and kill it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-21 5:06 PM
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